Motorists do indeed pay for the roads

Motorists do in fact 'pay for the roads'

This was a response i sent to the excellent journalist Lewis Goodhall who features on LBC radio.

I love your show and the News Agents and agree with a lot of what you say but on a number of occasions you have stated that motorists are 'under a mistaken belief they pay for the roads because road fund isn't that much' effectively.

I think what you are missing here is Duty and VAT on the fuel itself which is far greater.
In 2022-2023 government spent £11B on roads
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298667/united-kingdom-uk-public-sector-expenditure-national-roads/
In 2022-2023 the Fuel Duty part alone was £25.1B
https://www.statista.com/statistics/284323/united-kingdom-hmrc-tax-receipts-fuel-duty/

So yes motorists do pay for the roads through tax and get a poor return.

I speak as a Pedestrian, Cyclist and Motorist. I just found that line of defence to be misleading.

-ENDS-

Beyond the post itself lets look at how much of Fuel is actually tax. Currently my local station is charging about 162p per litre for diesel. Of that 53p is Fuel Duty (tax), about 81.5p is the cost of the fuel from the retailer and so abott 26.5p is VAT (tax). About 50% of your fuel cost is just tax.

If you think about it we already have a 'Pay per mile' road system, its just the only ones paying for the roads are the ones who use liquid or gas fuels.

If you think about it then the government will need to find new ways to pay for the roads as people move over to electric. I doubt that they can charge more for electricity at the station because that would be a regressive tax versus the move affluent people who can charge at home (think drive ways and garages).